hands come out of
head at night
touching,
the half-sunk project
of memory and
medicine
because we abandon
one sunset
and dart towards a
million sunrises
our nostrils breed
machine-fumes, electric durability
our men and women
glide along the smooth, glassy surface
at times it seems as
if their feet don’t touch the ground
their shadows don’t
fall on river
their tigers don’t
rove the wilderness and wildernesses
their tigers aren’t
naked enough
their tigers will
drown when the flood arrives
and dark waters rise
till there’s nothing
but dark silent water.
**
party at the empty
wagon
the drinks are strong
us gamblers, we’re
ready
dreamers die and
doers get bored
their medicine isn’t
memory yet
their great Doc has
starved to death
thus, you’re all
blue, and social
and all ways are easy
to take
children sit on Tree
of Death
and weave the tales
of world
in moments between
the barrel and skin & flesh
frozen in flashes,
like eternity ever were
your eyes, ah, your
eyes
surprise. surprise.
(NB: The primary
disease is so commonplace that it isn’t much of a disease anymore)
**
let’s go
where your sounds
become colours
owls break free from
clouds & trousers
let’s be polite as we
stand in queue
waiting for the
unwritten bulletin
and believe that the
world has a huge head
and a pair of huge
hands will come out of it
and sweep this filth
away. all before the rain.
weather reports arrive
from August, September,
hissing for
deliverance, like birds,
choked, as they ever
were,
to wake to unbelievable
infinite Universe. But first, proceed,
hug your shadows and
hug them tight
long is the way and
tough is the fight
where the sun wears a
crimson bun
the moon has robes of
sleek silk
and Mama Death, she
keeps her hair open
and makes certain
concessions for the hopeless
and the hounded – as they
eat the stars,
gouge out eyes of
blind gods and eat those eyes too
and eat the pencil-marks
on the edge.
Thus the meal is
complete and wholesome
we wash our faces and
sail ahoy
and toil hard to make
cutlasses out of question marks
and behead the haters
of the heart with them,
blood rises with
letters of love, rises to eat
strong heads of
primitive, absurd mountains in starlight
but the journey is essential
–
pining, as we ever
were – wet crows in cornices
to surround all seats
and flying thrones with watercolour, goatmilk and new turns on old bends
reach Liberation Inn
the Innkeeper takes
mercy as rent
the glasses are full.
Women sing soft songs of defeat
Tiny red lamp glows
on walls, hide portraits of many who died
to reach and of a few
who reached to die:
in kind, golden
forgetting
with holes in pockets
and brain
all because the third
obstacle, as we were told
shivers in green and
violins
but the tellers have
reached the fourth one now
but their signals do
not reach here,
in this dank porthole,
where I don’t hear
you,
can’t see you,
turtles turn into
shadows of tigers
and tramcars turn
into balloon-tailed almost-epiphanies
but some half-starved
postcards, screaming for relief
sickened by friendly
monsters who stand still and nod
hide their eyes from
pictures of clouds and snow –
pretty enough to
bring a teardrop or two forth when the engines get silent
pretty because sullen
frangipani blooms
and all levees and
fortresses get breached. Our children shall win one day.
**
There was an Emperor
who proclaimed:
‘give me every brick
in the world and I’ll make
a palace so big that
it will have everything. everything.’
he was given every
brick and more
and he got the palace
built.
Unaware, the lost
ship returned after 20 years
The Captain who was
old and weary
saw the palace from
far away. He got the cannon aimed at it
and fired the seven
salvoes that remained.
And then the ship
drifted far away.
The Emperor is still
around
He’d hidden in a hole
below the ground
he’s used to the
darkness
and now to him the
hole is the palace
and it has everything.
everything.
I have a map that
leads straight to the hole.
the ship was never
seen again.
**
Another king was
Belshazzar. He was silent.
Much darkness was
borne by light
we who have no faith,
nor hope,
we who play with dead
bulls, pelt stones at fiddlers on roofs
we who lack in style
and permanence, attack windmills,
take love for
politics and politics for love – doubted the sounds
slighted the furies,
coveted the satin and the satin-dancer –
we haven’t seen
hourglasses except in infrequent museums
we don’t know Belshazzar
and it doesn’t matter,
we don’t know of the
monstrosity that dances in soft sharp silence
when the world
sleeps, of the castle that rises from the swamps that once
was a river in mad
rage on sultry lonesome summernoon –
we who have created
sincerity and have adapted to such & other creations,
having known to rule
and be ruled, to love and be loved,
to ignore warning
signals until they fall in place with the bigger blueprint –
we will step down
from our pedestals now
we will hide our
faces in the pillows and weep
thinking that no one
can see us
thankful for
invisibility, that the skies & oceans are blue with our poison
gets easier to accept
this way, houses of hunger & history fill up.
**
certain dogs that
live and die
sit behind me, aware
when it’s quite &
still enough to expect prophesies
we run out of bullets
and adverbs
prisoners of stone
and flesh guard all ways of exist
happy judges hang
upside down from moon-balloon
but their laughter
hangs far away.
all in all, a bit of
a catastrophe
like ink on paper,
sun on sunflower
rivers on fire
et cetera.
but the dogs are
calm, they wipe their faces with soft white towels
and even share
bananas with me.
their mercy makes me
move
their mercy makes the
world move.
**
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